Cherchez la femme
by the-sexybee
Summary: Used to be called "Hisashiburi ni". A look at Youji's past, from his own POV. Non-Yaoi. Angst, violence, and non-citrusy sex. Please let me know what you think.
1. In the Beginning

Disclaimer:I don't own Weiss Kreuz, and I think we all know that, ne?This fic is just my own little idea of what Yoji's life was like before he joined Kritiker and Weiss.So far as I can tell, nothing is ever said about what his childhood was like.No spoilers in this chapter.Please review and let me know if you like/dislike it, if I make any mistakes, etc.In the meantime, on with the show!

I suppose one could say that my whole life with Weiss started with my mom.No, I don't mean that in some weird, fucked-up, psychotherapist kind of way.I've never had any problem with Oedipal complexes, thank God.No, what I meant, was simply that, along with my green eyes and light brown hair, my mom also bequeathed to me her incredible love of mystery stories.Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, you name it; she had it.Other kids learned to read out of primers or Mother Goose storybooks.I cut my literary teeth on Poe and Wilkie Collins.Betcha never knew I was so well read, huh?But my favorites were the hardboiled ones.Sam Spade, the Continental Op, Dashiell Hammet, and Phillip Marlowe.I searched for the Maltese Falcon and prowled more filthy back-end alleyways than a down-on- his-luck tomcat.And I loved it.I wanted to be like these people; hell, I wanted to be these people.If "down these mean streets every man must walk alone," then I would find those streets and walk them. Alone.I would become a PI, a private dick, the kind of man who wore a trenchcoat and fedora, smoked countless packs away just because it made him look cool, kept a bottle of bourbon in his bottom desk drawer, right next to his revolver, had a pert secretary and a world-weary attitude towards every client that walked in the door.Not to mention, of course, all the beautiful, dangerous women in his life.Hey, I've always been a born flirt.It's just my personality. Besides, I learned young the effect that compliments have on a woman. Normally, upon seeing my mom, you would probably just say, "She looks nice" and overlook her, but when she smiled--she became the most beautiful woman on the planet.But I digress....

So my mom taught me to love all of her books with the same love she felt for them.And I grew up wanting to emulate Humphrey Bogart.Probably sounds pretty childish, doesn't it?I suppose I might even have grown out of it, decided to grow up and become a good little corporate banker like everybody else.Hmph, yeah right, Youji Kudou, corporate banker just doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?But then my comfy little life shattered.My father had basically never been around for any of my life--the occasional phone call, usually from jail, hardly counted.Mom and I preferred it that way.I'd picked up, from the way she talked, that theirs was not the most harmonious of relationships and that he had a bad habit of ending fights with violence.He was content most of the time to simply ignore our presence.And we felt the same way about him.I mean, I got a last name from him, what more did I need?So imagine my shock when one day, when I was about thirteen or so, coming home from school to find a strange vehicle car parked in our driveway, and to hear angry shouts emanating from the kitchen.I ran in to find my mom screaming at this grimy-looking stranger to get out of her house.I just sort of froze in the doorway, wondering what in the hell was going on and if I should call the cops.Like they'd be able to do anything by the time it took to get out to our little home in this backwoods town.He saw me and stopped yelling obscenities to stare intently.I hated that stare; it felt like he was leaving trails of greasy muck down my mind with his eyes.His stare seemed to judge, and find lacking, everything about me.It made me want to pound his face in.And then he spoke.

"So that's th' boy.Hmmph.Not much like me, is he?Eh, I don't s'pose you'd give your old man here some money, would you boy?"He leered at me in what I presume was supposed to be a pleading smile and swayed drunkenly, and I realized suddenly three things.First, this was my father, the very man who'd helped to produce me.Second, he was rip-roaringly drunk in the middle of the day, and third, I didn't like him one bit.See? I've always been a quick thinker.

As I was sorting out these blindingly obvious deductions, my mother found her voice again.This time, although not loud, her voice held the sort of strength and determination that I'd quickly found it was best to immediately obey.Kind of like Aya when he's in one of 'those' moods.Hmm...I wonder if Aya would kill me for comparing him to my mom?Save that thought for later.Anyway, she told him to get out of her house now and to never bother us again.All I can say is, if it'd been me that she was telling that to, I would've had my bags packed and been in another country before she finished the sentence.I can recognize an implied "or else" command when I hear one.Apparently, however, that is not a skill I inherited from my late un-lamented father.

He stayed there, standing in the middle of our kitchen, alternating curses at her hard-heartedness with pleas for more money.I wonder now why she didn't just give in, give him a handful of yen and tell him to hit the road.Damned stubborn streak she had, I guess.Another thing I inherited from her, I suppose.The less I get from my father the better.They continued like that, yelling at each other.I was worried that he might hit her or try to steal something, so I tried to push him out of the house, but it was like trying to shift a brick wall.I was a really skinny kid back then; hadn't hit my growth spurt either, all hands and feet and big eyes.Hard to believe someone like me could ever have looked as innocent as Omi, eh?Suffice to say, my pitiful attempts to push him out of the house didn't cause anything more than to irritate him further.I wish now I'd had the sense to realize that that was the only thing my efforts could have done and had stayed over in the doorway, or phoned the police, or something, anything else.I wish I'd had the size and strength then that I do now.I wish I'd had a weapon, any weapon.Hell, I wish a lot, don't I?But wishing doesn't do any good, especially at changing the past.

I was kicking and lashing out at him, only connecting half the time and not causing any damage, but as I said before, he was a man to whom physical action, usually violent, was the answer for every problem. His solution, therefore, to the current situation, was to backhand me hard across the face, snapping my head and sending me sprawling across the kitchen floor and into a corner of the room.

My head throbbed, both front where he hit me, and back where I hit the wooden floor; one of my eyes was starting to quickly swell shut, and my nose was bleeding slightly, but I saw what happened next clearly enough to have nightmares about it for years to come.I'm sure you've heard that old saw about "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?"Well, let me tell you, that doesn't even begin to come close to the fury of a mother protecting her child.If he'd been any less drunk, I'm sure my old man would've realized that and hightailed it out of there.But "if" is a mighty big word to hang a future on...

My mom--she went...berserk is the only word for it.Suddenly he wasn't her no-good absentee husband, or even just a money-desperate bum.He was an ENEMY.And he was hurting her CHILD.She lashed out at him with a force I never would have dreamed her capable of.No weapon, just her hands and nails and feet encased in pointy-toed shoes.She was like a wildcat, hissing and yowling her anger.And I could only watch, frozen in shock and pain, as the inevitable occurred.

Her nails raked across his face.He bellowed in an inarticulate combination of rage and fear and pain.She screamed and kicked at him over and over again, blindly desperate in her fury. He clutched her arms so tightly that the skin went white all around his fingers.She jerked wildly in his grasp and spat into his eyes.Losing what little control he'd had, he hit her.Her body went flying backwards, and her head connected with the corner of the wall.Hard.Sickeningly hard, with a sharp crunching noise like celery stalks being broken.She slumped down as if her legs had turned to strings, and pitched onto her side.Her eyes stared out at me vacantly as if shocked to find herself on the floor.I stayed in my corner and prayed that he wouldn't start hitting her again.That she'd get up soon and make him leave us alone.That someone, anyone, would come along and stop this fight.What can I say?I was young and naive and not nearly as well-acquainted with death as I am now. 

He knew, though.Somehow he knew.I don't know if it was from a lifetime spent in and out of every bar and prison around or if it's just some kind of sixth sense that you develop as an adult.The ability to tell the instant that someone is gone; the ability to know the moment that what was once a human being is now just another discarded pile of flesh.Perhaps it's because, as children, we cannot conceive of our own mortality, and so are unable to share in this strange empathy that allows us to catch a glimpse of our own eventual fate in another's.He just collapsed there, on the floor, beside her.I was shocked.He was ...crying; moaning and wailing, begging for forgiveness from someone who could answer him no more.I think I knew then, but I hugged my denial like a warm blanket, refusing to accept that awful knowledge.I just sat there, blankly, watching my father tremble as he cried, and watching the slowly spreading trickle of crimson shine under the fluorescent lights.

One of the neighbors must have called the police when the shouting started, because they eventually showed.Who knows how long we would have stayed like that, otherwise.Frozen.Like a movie set to 'Pause.'I suppose shock is the technical term for it.I just felt...numb.

After that, I went to live with my grandmother--my mom's mother, not my dad's.If he had any family left, they stayed far away during the ensuing trial.Bad publicity, ya know?I suppose she loved my mom and even, to a certain extent, me, but she didn't believe in expressing emotions very much.Very polite, very formal, very strict.Of course I rebelled.She didn't approve of my mom's marriage, and had basically severed all ties with her.Hell, I didn't even know I _had_ a grandmother living in Japan until she rescued me from the neighbors I was staying with during the trial.That first night under her roof she set out quite an impressively long list of rules and regulations for me to live by.Foremost among them was to never mention my mother in her presence.Maybe she just didn't want to deal with the emotions her name would bring up, but to me it was just more evidence that she was one cold-hearted bitch. (See, I don't love _all_ women, just the pretty, nice ones.Or at least the pretty ones.)In the end, the only things of my mother that I was allowed to keep were her books.Not all of them.Grandmother said there were too many to pack, and "besides, they are just wasteful literature, with nothing of value or artistic merit."So naturally I smuggled in as many as I could and took to reading them, both openly and in secret as much as possible.Obedience has never been my strong suit.


	2. The Girl From Yesterday

Part 2:Um, still no spoilers, so never fear.Again, comments always appreciated.

I was sixteen the first time I fell in love.I suppose you might consider that somewhat of a late start for someone with the reputation that I have, but despite my outrageous flirting, I tend to shy away from strong emotions.It's much easier to let things and people go if you don't become deeply attached to them.Of course, when I did finally fall for someone, I fell hard.'Hitting the ground after a ten-story jump' hard.'Ken-ken's cookies' hard.'Trying to get anything other than revenge through to Aya when he's in a "Takatori, shi-ne" mood' hard. Yeah, that hard.

She was so beautiful and so very, very young.I suppose I was young too, but I didn't feel it.My youth had slipped away in that fractured afternoon moment three years ago.Since then my father had died, stabbed to death in a prison yard brawl.I declined to go to the funeral.No one in my new school knew about my past, assuming that my parents had died in an illness or accident, and I preferred to leave them with their assumptions, rather than deal with the suspicion, fear, or pity that I knew would greet me if I told them the truth.But I see I have digressed from the story again.I was talking about my first real love.Her name was Tamura Meiko.I could go on for hours about her silken hair or her dark eyes that I endlessly compared to a summer night's sky.But you probably don't care to hear about the hopelessly sappy maunderings of a man about his first love.

She was in my class at school; a cheerful, warm-hearted girl who laughed at all my jokes, even the really corny ones, and when she smiled up at me I felt that I would do anything for her.We went everywhere together, those first few weeks.I hadn't laughed that much since my mother died.Just thinking about Meiko made me want to smile.Really smile, not one of the fake smiles that I used as my shield against the world.It was a wonderful time for me.But unfortunately, far too brief.Like everything else good in my life. . . . . Gah, enough bitterness.I'll leave that to those who are better suited for it (not to name any names).

Of course, it was only a matter of time of time before her parents decided to check up on me, to find out more about this brash young boy who was presumptuous enough to dare to date their only daughter.They contacted my grandmother, who was more than willing to fill them in on the sordid little tale of my past.You'd think she'd have some sympathy for her own daughter, right?Wrong.My mother came off as little more than a second-rate whore, running off with her sleazy alcoholic boyfriend just to rebel from her parents.I don't know much about my mother's past other than what little my grandmother mentioned, but I know my mother, and after having lived with my grandmother for all those years, I can see why _anyone_ who offered a smidgen of love would seem attractive by comparison.

So Meiko's parents' forbid her from associating with me anymore.I guess they thought that manslaughter was inheritable too.I was a bad influence on their precious daughter.Huh, she was the one who had to teach _me_ how to French kiss.And on our second date too!I'd say she was the bad influence. _Wink_.

When I found out, I tried to talk to her, to tell her that we could make it through this.I was so sure that love would win in the end.All we had to do was stay strong and stay together.Surely her parents' anger would disappear in the face of our love?Blah, blah, all that typical teenage star-crossed lover stuff.But if I was young and idealistic, then she was much more practical.Too practical, it seemed to me.I've always been a romantic.I begged; I pleaded with her to run off with me, where we could be happy together.But through it all she held firm.She popped my foolish dreams with a few simple words._"I'm really very sorry, Youji, but . . . well, after all, it's just a crush.It's not like we're in love or anything."_

It felt like she'd ripped my heart out of my chest, ground it beneath her shoes and danced a jig on top of it.(See, I bet you didn't know I was so good with words; if I wasn't so good at killing I could have been a writer._Smirk._)I don't remember what I said to her.Presumably, I just laughed it off.'Don't let 'em see you crying' has always been one of my unofficial mottoes.It's funny, but if you smile a lot, then people will leave you alone more.All those people who sulk in their corners constantly angsting are really just silently screaming out to everybody 'Ask me!Ask me why I'm brooding!'But nobody ever stops to question if the smiling person really is as happy as he appears.But I'm sure you don't really want to hear my theories about emotional façades.Of course not.Not when my fucked up personal life is so much more interesting. 

Of course, my grandmother was happy about the rejection.Anything that screwed up my life made her happy.Revenge by proxy on my dead mother.I certainly had never done anything to her.I tried to avoid her as much as possible, preferring to hang out at the neighborhood bars.I know what you're thinking, but I looked older than I really was, and even if they did suspect, I always spent my time nursing a beer or two over in the back corner quietly, so nobody ever kicked me out.

After that, I tried to avoid Meiko as much as possible at school, and whether she was glad for it or sorry, I was never able to tell.She started dating somebody else, some guy her parents could approve of, and whose father didn't kill his wife in a drunken rage.She seemed happy enough with it, so I suppose that should have been enough for me, but I know I would have gladly gone back to her if she'd shown any interest in me.Ah, I've always been a fool when it comes to women.

And there've been a lot of women in my life, I freely admit that.The girls at school still didn't know about my past and they were more than eager to sympathize with me over the breakup.I must have dated my way through over half the entire female population at my high school that year.And, no, I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't for the sex.Believe what you will about me, but I didn't lose my virginity until the ripe old age of eighteen.I won't mention her name (a true gentleman never does), but she was older than I was.Not by that much, but enough so that she knew what she wanted and how to get it.I met her at one of the neighborhood bars.I was pondering what I was going to do with my future, certain only that I did not want spend any more time than was necessary living in my grandmother's house.

I'd noticed her walk in, of course.I notice every pretty woman in the area.It's just one of those special skills of mine, the ability to recognize and instantly locate every pretty woman in the area.Not quite as marketable as the ability to cold-bloodedly strangle the life out of a man, but much more enjoyable for me and everybody else involved._Very_ much more enjoyable.

So she sat down beside me at the bar, and we started talking.I know it sounds like something I stole from a cheesy paperback novel, right?Especially the part where she invited me back to her place, but I shit you not, this actually happened to me.Is it really that hard to believe?I mean look at the rest of my life and tell me if it doesn't all read like the storyline from a really bad movie.

So I went home with her (hell, wouldn't you?), and she taught me quite a few things that night, not all of them about sex, either.She didn't tell me much about herself, and I appreciated her reticence as an excuse for my own.We didn't take anything for granted or expect anything deeper out of it, and all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it.I was luckier than a lot of people, I guess, in that.And even though we never really saw each other again after that, I never resented her for using me or tried to contact her again.We both knew it wasn't meant to be anything more.

Aw, I've disappointed you, I bet.You wanted to hear all the juicy details about my "first time," right?Too bad.You want graphic sex scenes, go check out some of those pages Omi surfs around late at night when he thinks none of the rest of us are paying attention.God, was I ever that hentai at his age?Probably even more so, which is why I don't kid him about it as much as I could.Only once or twice a week, max.


End file.
